Margaret Wright – The NM Political Reporthttp://nmpoliticalreport.com
New Mexico's best political reporting. Period.Tue, 14 Aug 2018 21:39:15 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8https://i0.wp.com/s3.amazonaws.com/s3.nmpoliticalreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/10210318/cropped-NMPR-logo.jpg?fit=32%2C32Margaret Wright – The NM Political Reporthttp://nmpoliticalreport.com
323282292433Midterms could be key, with New Mexico’s abortion rights protections at a crossroadshttp://nmpoliticalreport.com/864986/midterms-could-be-key-with-new-mexicos-abortion-rights-protections-at-a-crossroads/
Tue, 31 Jul 2018 06:05:24 +0000http://nmpoliticalreport.com/?p=864986

During a sit-down earlier this month in the sparse Albuquerque administrative office for Planned Parenthood of New Mexico, CEO Vicki Cowart wondered aloud if the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision had lulled much of the public into taking legal abortion for granted. Here in New Mexico, abortion access has been solidly maintained by decades of activism by rights proponents and their collaborations with supportive elected officials.

Reproductive healthcare and abortion access may be profoundly personal decisions, but changes to public policy in New Mexico could generate repercussions that extend far beyond the most private experiences of women across the state.

According to recent analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, nearly one-in-four women in the United States have had or will have an abortion by age 45. And since Associate Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced in June that he would retire July 31, attention to a 50-year-old New Mexico law has intensified.

Last month, Albuquerque-based anti-abortion missionaries Bud and Tara Shaver and the University of New Mexico branch of Students for Life co-sponsored a screening of a documentary promoted as a way to “start a healthy conversation” about abortion. Someone chalked sidewalks outside the university campus venue with phrases like “Support unbiased research” and “Abortion does not cause breast cancer.” Tara told me she’d invited several pro-choice groups and was disappointed none of their members attended.

The Feast of the Annunciation marked by the Catholic Church falls not long after the vernal equinox, in time for the arrival of new spring growth. It commemorates the biblical story of when a young, unmarried virgin living in poverty, Mary, found herself “greatly troubled by the words” pronounced by an angel. She’d been divinely selected for an “immaculate” conception, with assurance she’d give birth to the masculine incarnation of a paternal, all-powerful God.

The Albuquerque-based Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women has hosted its fifth annual Tribal Leaders Summit to brief tribal, state and federal officials who work with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. Last week’s event included presentations by Navajo Nation Council Delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty, former U.S. Assistant District Attorney for New Mexico David Adams, and Alray Nelson, lead organizer for the Coalition for Diné Equality.

Correction: In referencing a Ms. article from 2011, this story originally said that Chris Garcia was one of the operators of an allegedly illegal website, Southwest Companions. Garcia was charged by police of being an operator of the site, which they alleged was a house of prostitution, but a state district court judge threw out all the charges. The reference has been removed.

Ripple effects of the #MeToo movement addressing sexual assault and harassment continue to cascade, from Hollywood to academia, sports to politics. For people like Pamela Stafford who are closest to those at particular risk of assault and harassment, such public conversations feel painfully overdue. “I don’t think there’s been as much of a ripple effect as we would like to see,” she said during an interview last week.

It’s been three years since I began work for NM Political Report focused on politics and what are often referred to as “women’s issues.” It’s phrasing I reflexively shy away from, as there are few issues not relevant to women. Areas like reproductive health and access relate to everyone, regardless of background and gender identity—they’re relevant to every family, no matter their composition or belief systems.

As the process lumbers forward, it’s helpful to contemplate a concept raised by one of the representatives for the controversial development.

Jim Strozier, president of Consensus Planning, said last week during a special meeting of the Bernalillo County Commission that Santolina is the result of meticulous “systems thinking.” He was referring in part to his firm’s planning process, which he described as the merging of a range of considerations into a unified and ambitious vision: steady, multi-use development for the next 50 years on nearly 14,000 acres of what is today stark desert sloped against the Rio Grande Valley.